Operations Analytics

Operations Analytics

Operations Analytics

University of Pennsylvania

About this course: This course is designed to impact the way you think about transforming data into better decisions. Recent extraordinary improvements in data-collecting technologies have changed the way firms make informed and effective business decisions. The course on operations analytics, taught by three of Wharton’s leading experts, focuses on how the data can be used to profitably match supply with demand in various business settings. In this course, you will learn how to model future demand uncertainties, how to predict the outcomes of competing policy choices and how to choose the best course of action in the face of risk. The course will introduce frameworks and ideas that provide insights into a spectrum of real-world business challenges, will teach you methods and software available for tackling these challenges quantitatively as well as the issues involved in gathering the relevant data.
This course is appropriate for beginners and business professionals with no prior analytics experience.

In this module you’ll be introduced to the Newsvendor problem, a fundamental operations problem of matching supply with demand in uncertain settings. You'll also cover the foundations of descriptive analytics for operations, learning how to use historical demand data to build forecasts for future demand. Over the week, you’ll be introduced to underlying analytic concepts, such as random variables, descriptive statistics, common forecasting tools, and measures for judging the quality of your forecasts.

5 videos, 1 reading

Video: Course Introduction and Welcome

Video: The Newsvendor Problem

Video: Moving Averages

Video: Trends, Seasonality

Video: Week 1 Wrap-up, Apparel Industry

Reading: Excel Files, Slides and Practice Problems

Graded: Newsvendor and Forecasting Quiz

WEEK 2

Prescriptive Analytics, Low Uncertainty

In this module, you'll learn how to identify the best decisions in settings with low uncertainty by building optimization models and applying them to specific business challenges. During the week, you’ll use algebraic formulations to concisely express optimization problems, look at how algebraic models should be converted into a spreadsheet format, and learn how to use spreadsheet Solvers as tools for identifying the best course of action.

6 videos, 1 reading

Video: How to Build an Optimization Model

Video: Optimizing with Solver

Video: Network Optimization Example

Video: (Optional) Week 2 Review

Video: (Optional) Solver on Mac

Video: (Optional) Solver in Google Sheets

Reading: Excel Files, Slides, and Practice Problems

Graded: Decisions with Low Uncertainty Quiz

WEEK 3

Predictive Analytics, Risk

How can you evaluate and compare decisions when their impact is uncertain? In this module you will learn how to build and interpret simulation models that can help you to evaluate complex business decisions in uncertain settings. During the week, you will be introduced to some common measures of risk and reward, you’ll use simulation to estimate these quantities, and you’ll learn how to interpret and visualize your simulation results.

4 videos, 1 reading

Video: Comparing Decisions in Uncertain Settings

Video: Simulating Uncertain Outcomes in Excel

Video: Interpreting and Visualizing Simulation Output

Video: (Optional) Week 3 Review

Reading: Excel file, Slides, Practice Problems

Graded: Risk and Evaluation Quiz

WEEK 4

Prescriptive Analytics, High Uncertainty

This module introduces decision trees, a useful tool for evaluating decisions made under uncertainty. Using a concrete example, you'll learn how optimization, simulation, and decision trees can be used together to solve more complex business problems with high degrees of uncertainty. You'll also discover how the Newsvendor problem introduced in Week 1 can be solved with the simulation and optimization framework introduced in Weeks 2 and 3.

6 videos, 1 reading

Video: Decision Trees

Video: Using Simulation with Decision Trees

Video: Using Optimization Together with Simulation

Video: Week 4 Wrap-up

Video: (Optional) Session 4 Review

Video: (Optional) Advanced Session on Optimization

Reading: Excel files, Slides, and Practice Problems

Graded: Decision Tree Analysis Quiz

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University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania (commonly referred to as Penn) is a private university, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. A member of the Ivy League, Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and considers itself to be the first university in the United States with both undergraduate and graduate studies.